Workers begin to fill tunnels at Mexican border
Seven passages in California and Arizona used by drug smugglers are to be closed off with concrete.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tunnel16may16,1,5778698.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Workers begin to fill tunnels at Mexican border
Seven passages in California and Arizona used by drug smugglers are to be closed off with concrete.

By Richard Marosi
Times Staff Writer

May 16, 2007

SAN DIEGO — Workers poured concrete into the largest tunnel under the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday as federal authorities began an effort to fill subterranean passages that were created to funnel drugs north.

Five tunnels in California and two in Arizona will be filled during the next two months to permanently close off pipelines that smugglers in some cases had managed to reuse after border authorities discovered them. The project comes three months after The Times reported that the tunnels had not been filled in, largely because of jurisdictional issues and lack of funding.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security provided $2.7 million after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) demanded the tunnels be closed, calling them a national security risk.

Workers began drilling holes Tuesday into the so-called El Grande tunnel, which runs for nearly half a mile between warehouses in Tijuana and San Diego.

The tunnel, which features reinforced walls and ventilation and lighting systems, presented unique challenges that required weeks of preparation, authorities said.

Drugs and bodies have been found in tunnels in the past. So workers sent a robot into the tunnel's depths to look for obstructions. The robot sent back images of digging tools, but found no major blockages.

The tunnel featured a water-pumping system, but groundwater had flooded much of the passage since it was abandoned more than a year ago. Workers pumped thousands of gallons of water out of the tunnel, which is an average of 80 feet below the surface. They then drilled holes every 40 feet along its length before beginning to pour in the concrete. It is expected to take three days and more than 100 truckloads of concrete to fill the passage, authorities said.

The number of border tunnels has grown sharply in response to a massive increase in above-ground enforcement. More than 50 have been discovered in the last few years, but most are small, crudely built passages that are easily destroyed.

U.S. authorities have typically left the bigger tunnels largely intact, capping them only at the border and exit points. Smugglers have reused at least two large tunnels after digging around those caps.

The project will fill tunnels on the U.S. side, but the state of passages on the Mexican side is unknown. U.S. authorities say they don't know how much progress authorities have made there.

Mexican authorities want to close off their side, too, but they lack the resources and technology to do so, said Frank Marwood, head of the San Diego-based U.S. Tunnel Task Force. It includes agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix drug cartel is suspected to be behind the construction of El Grande, which authorities stumbled upon in January 2006 when they found an opening in an Otay Mesa warehouse. More than two tons of marijuana was found near the tunnel, and a Los Angeles-area man arrested at the warehouse later pleaded guilty to drug-related charges. No other suspects have been arrested.

Later this month, authorities are expected to start filling in the so-called Taj Mahal of tunnels, another passage running from Tijuana to San Diego that features concrete flooring and lighting. It was discovered 13 years ago. Three tunnels in Calexico and two in Nogales, Ariz., will also be filled, authorities said.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

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Official's slaying prompts calls for troops in Mexico City
Party officials say the capital was unprepared for a backlash from the war on drug traffickers.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexdrugs16may16,1,7232303.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Official's slaying prompts calls for troops in Mexico City
Party officials say the capital was unprepared for a backlash from the war on drug traffickers.

By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer

May 16, 2007

MEXICO CITY — The leaders of two political parties called Tuesday for army troops to be dispatched to this capital city and its suburbs to fight drug traffickers in the wake of the assassination of a high-ranking official in the attorney general's office.

President Felipe Calderon promised an "unprecedented battle" against the traffickers, who have killed as many as 1,000 people this year as they fight Mexican authorities while battling one another for control of a lucrative trade in cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin and other illicit drugs. Most of the drugs are shipped to the United States.

The shooting in the political, cultural and media capital of Mexico raised troubling questions about Calderon's declared war on traffickers, which has included troop deployments to several states and cities, where violence has since spiraled. Newspaper editorials Tuesday accused the president of being unprepared for the backlash.

Jorge Chabat, an author and drug trade expert here, said the public would probably continue to back Calderon's efforts against the traffickers, despite the recent setbacks.

"It could be argued that Calderon's offensive has made the violence worse, and that he was not fully prepared for the escalation of violence that followed," Chabat said. "But the only other alternative was to do nothing. Or to make a deal with the drug traffickers. And that just isn't possible in a democratic state under the rule of law."

Police said they had few leads in the shooting of Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix, who had been appointed just weeks ago to head a drug intelligence unit in the federal attorney general's office. Lugo Felix was killed in a rush-hour ambush Monday a few yards from his office in the southern district of Coyoacan.

"We are witnessing a head-on, unprecedented struggle in the history of our country against organized crime," said Jorge Triana, a leader of Calderon's conservative National Action Party in Mexico City's Legislative Assembly. "We believe that Mexico City has become one of the most dangerous hot spots in the country and that [the authorities] have not acted appropriately."

Leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico City and surrounding Mexico state joined the call for troops and federal police to deploy in the Mexico City metropolitan area, home to about 20 million people.

Until recently, the country's widespread drug violence has been a mostly provincial phenomenon centered on border areas and port cities.

But this year has seen several violent incidents in and around Mexico City that were apparently related to drug trafficking, including the deaths of two federal police officers shot April 26 on the highway linking Mexico City with Toluca.

On Tuesday, observers said Lugo Felix's death could mark a turning point in the nation's drug war.

"The killing is proof of the enormous power and impunity of organized crime," said an editorial in the left-leaning La Jornada, which accused the Calderon government of launching its anti-drug offensive without adequate preparation or protection for even the highest officials involved in the operation.

Speaking to hundreds of young people at the National Youth Olympiad in Veracruz, Calderon promised to win the drug war. "We will recover our Mexico, its plazas, parks and streets, which do not belong to criminals, but rather to the children, the youth and the free men of our country," he said.

The border city of Tijuana and the southern states of Guerrero and Michoacan have been among the places to which army troops and federal police units have been dispatched by Calderon to fight drug traffickers since he took power in December.

Leaders of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, which controls Mexico City's government, called any such deployment in the capital premature.

"The army is the last card we should play," said Victor Hugo Cirigo, a PRD city lawmaker and the leader of the capital's Legislative Assembly.

On Tuesday, the head of Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, Jose Luis Soberanes, said the army was unprepared for policing duties. The commission, an official government agency, has received 52 complaints of abuse related to the army presence in Michoacan, Soberanes said.

"What we should do is strengthen the local police — give them training, equipment — and substitute the army with police so [the soldiers] return to their barracks," Soberanes said.

*
hector.tobar@latimes.com

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U.S., allies seen as losing drug war
Figures for last year show that cocaine is cheaper, purer and widely available.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cocaine5may05,1,161277.story?coll=la-headlines-world

U.S., allies seen as losing drug war
Figures for last year show that cocaine is cheaper, purer and widely available.

By Sam Enriquez
Times Staff Writer

May 5, 2007

MEXICO CITY — The United States and its Latin American allies are losing a major battle in the war on drugs, according to indicators that show cocaine prices dipped for most of 2006 and U.S. users were getting more bang for their buck.

Despite billions of dollars in U.S. antidrug spending and record seizures, statistics recently released by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy suggest that cocaine is as available as ever.

Cocaine users and law enforcement officials both care about price and purity. Authorities work to choke off supply, driving up cost and dampening street sales. Users want better coke at cheaper prices.

In 2005, John P. Walters, the head of the drug policy office, made headlines touting a surge in cocaine prices and falling levels of quality. Those figures indicated that U.S. drug control policies were working, he said.

But the new numbers issued by his office indicate that any victory was short-lived. Retail cocaine prices last year fell more than 12% from January to October, while average purity of cocaine seized by authorities rose from about 68% to 73%. And this time, the drug policy office did little to publicize the figures, releasing them in a letter to U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

The new statistics emboldened critics who say the Bush administration's antidrug strategies need to change.

"You can spin this any way you want, but when prices go down and supply goes up, the fact of the matter is that this policy is not working," said U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a longtime critic who supports spending more on economic development.

Since the Iraq war began more than four years ago, the Pentagon has sharply reduced spending on air and sea surveillance of trafficking routes in the Pacific and Caribbean. The centerpiece of the U.S. strategy against cocaine has shifted to Plan Colombia, which funds aerial fumigation of coca plants. Colombian growers supply 90% of U.S. users through Mexican smuggling rings that control the cocaine and marijuana trade.

"Crop control is the most cost-effective means of cutting supply," according to the 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, issued by the U.S. State Department. Last year, Colombia reported it had destroyed more than half a million acres of coca plants.

But growers have responded to the fumigation by breaking up their crops into smaller areas in an apparently successful hide-and-seek strategy. U.S. officials estimate that as much as 800 tons of cocaine still was exported from Colombia.

Patrick Ward, deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the Colombia eradication program kept 350 tons of cocaine from being produced.

But critics say that availability of cocaine in most U.S. cities is evidence of failure.

"In 2005, more coca was grown in Colombia than they had in 2000, when Plan Colombia started," said Adam Isacson, a Colombia analyst for the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank. "They can say, 'Look how much more coke we'd have without fumigation,' but that sounds pretty lame."

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe traveled to Washington this week to lobby for continued U.S. support amid allegations of ties between his government and illegal paramilitary groups. Colombia has received $4.7 billion since 2000.

The continued high production in Colombia is also troubling news for Mexico, which reaps the cocaine trade's greatest profits and bears the brunt of its costs. More than 2,000 deaths last year were attributed to an ongoing battle among rival drug gangs for control of smuggling routes.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon in December deployed the army to stem the bloodshed. But the killings continue at or ahead of last year's pace. In January, Mexico extradited several key drug trafficking figures to face trial in U.S. courts, including the alleged head of the country's east coast-based cartel. More extraditions are expected.

But continuing violence and a steady supply of cocaine crossing into the U.S. from Mexico have many questioning Calderon's strategy as well as Washington's.

"The standard that economists would use on extradition would be that it frees up the market," said Peter Reuter, an economist and drug policy expert at Rand Corp. "If you're Mexico, you care about reducing the capability of these organizations to execute people in large numbers. But the idea that it will stop cocaine is wrong."

Mexico's army operations, historically, have been effective only in the short term, said Jose Luis Pineyro, a military affairs expert in Mexico City. "After the military leaves, the narcos come back."

sam.enriquez@latimes.com

Times staff writers Héctor Tobar and Carlos Martinez contributed to this report.

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Key drug cartel figures admit smuggling, murder
In plea deal, brothers Ismael and Gilberto Higuera Guerrero are expected to testify against alleged head of Arellano Felix ring.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cartel28apr28,1,6513372.story?coll=la-headlines-california
From the Los Angeles Times
Key drug cartel figures admit smuggling, murder
In plea deal, brothers Ismael and Gilberto Higuera Guerrero are expected to testify against alleged head of Arellano Felix ring.
By Richard Marosi
Times Staff Writer

April 28, 2007

SAN DIEGO — Two top bosses of the notorious Arellano Felix drug cartel have pleaded guilty to smuggling tons of drugs into the U.S. and murdering and torturing rivals of the Tijuana-based criminal organization.

The defendants, brothers Ismael and Gilberto Higuera Guerrero, are the highest-ranking members of the cartel to be convicted in a U.S. court and are expected to testify against Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, who allegedly took control of the organization in recent years.

The Higuera Guerrero brothers were key lieutenants during the peak years of the cartel in the 1990s, when it was responsible for importing the majority of the drugs into the U.S. They pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.

Federal prosecutors will recommend that Ismael receive 40 years in prison and that Gilberto be given 30 years. The brothers also agreed to forfeit $6 million, according to the agreement.

Ismael, 46, and Gilberto, 39, coordinated the transportation of many tons of cocaine from Colombia into Mexico via commercial airlines, private planes, cargo shipments and trucks, according to the plea agreement announced Friday.

The drugs were smuggled into the U.S. in car trunks and hidden vehicle compartments and on small boats. Ismael, who ran the day-to-day operations, regularly bribed government and law enforcement officials in Mexico, the documents said.

Both brothers also admitted to being enforcers for the cartel. They pleaded guilty to kidnapping, torturing and murdering rivals and uncooperative government and law enforcement officials.

The Mexican government extradited the brothers to the U.S. earlier this year as part of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's wide-ranging offensive against drug cartel figures.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

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16 arrested in Coachella Valley drug raids
Federal officials say a Mexican Mafia group selling methamphetamine is dismantled.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mafia28apr28,1,172415.story?coll=la-headlines-california
From the Los Angeles Times

16 arrested in Coachella Valley drug raids
Federal officials say a Mexican Mafia group selling methamphetamine is dismantled.

By Maeve Reston
Times Staff Writer

April 28, 2007

Federal officials said Friday that they dismantled one of the most prolific drug rings in the Coachella Valley on Thursday in an operation that resulted in the arrests of 16 people, including one "shot caller" for the Mexican Mafia, and the seizure of 50 guns, methamphetamine and a pipe bomb.

A joint gang task force of state, local and federal officials tracked members of the network for 10 months by recording cellphone conversations and posing as drug buyers, officials said.

In those calls, some of the suspects allegedly revealed their involvement in the Mexican Mafia, a gang that operates throughout California and Mexico and is deeply entrenched in the state's prison system.

The most sought-after of the defendants was the alleged shot caller — Jose Chavez Huerta, 42, who officials say continually identified himself in his cellphone conversations as the highest-ranking member of the Mexican Mafia in the Coachella Valley.

Federal officials said Huerta, who lives in Thermal, collected "taxes" from dealers who operated in his territory and provided a share of his profits to his Mexican Mafia sponsor, Richard Aguirre.

Aguirre is incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, where he is serving a life sentence for murder.

Huerta is charged with conspiracy to possess narcotics and possession with intent to distribute narcotics.

Since 1989, Huerta has served numerous prison sentences for smuggling drugs into prison and selling heroin and methamphetamine, , as well as robbery, assault and gun charges.

Along with Huerta's wife and brother, authorities arrested Aguirre's 75-year-old mother Thursday.

Authorities alleged that Aguirre's mother, Jovita Aguirre of Pico Rivera, collected "taxes" for Aguirre and relayed messages between her son and the gang members who answered to him.

Authorities are still searching for Huerta's associate, Tony Rodriguez, who was identified as the second-ranking member of the Mexican Mafia in the Coachella Valley, which stretches from east of the Banning area to the Imperial County line.

Officials allege that Rodriguez and Huerta enforced the Mexican Mafia's rule over the area by threats, assaults and murders — including attacks in prison.

So far, 15 people have been charged with federal crimes. Four people arrested Thursday and Friday on drug charges will be charged in state courts.

J. Stephen Tidwell, assistant director in charge of the FBI in Los Angeles, said officials believed they had dealt a "pretty harsh blow" to the Coachella Valley operation.

He noted that among the 50 guns found during the raids, officials confiscated short-barreled rifles and illegal assault rifles with removable magazines.

Officials are still investigating how much methamphetamine Huerta's network handled per month, where it was coming from and who the group's primary clients were, Tidwell said.

Officials acknowledged that the Mexican Mafia still has a strong influence in the Coachella Valley, and said local officials would have to stay vigilant to prevent other gang members from taking over Huerta's clientele.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

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Gunmen storm hospital in Tijuana
Hundreds of patients are evacuated as the assailants search for a comrade hurt in an earlier gun battle.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-tijuana19apr19,1,3572595.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Gunmen storm hospital in Tijuana
Hundreds of patients are evacuated as the assailants search for a comrade hurt in an earlier gun battle.

By Richard Marosi
Times Staff Writer

April 19, 2007

TIJUANA — Masked gunmen opened fire on police Wednesday at a large hospital as they searched for an accomplice wounded in an earlier gun battle, Mexican police and witnesses said.

Two state police officers were killed in the attack, which forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients from the seven-story facility.

The shootouts shattered a period of relative calm in the crime-weary border city, where thousands of soldiers and federal agents began patrolling the streets this year in an effort to combat growing drug-related violence.

Officials said the chain of events began when gunmen with suspected links to organized crime fought federal agents who had stopped the suspects' car. One suspect was killed and another was injured, authorities said.

Shortly after the injured man arrived at Tijuana General Hospital, a group of about six gunmen tried to shoot their way into the emergency room, witnesses and police said. It was unclear whether the gunmen intended to rescue the man or kill him, police said.

Hospital workers said they were tending to patients when the barrage of gunfire shattered windows and gouged walls around the emergency room.

"We all hit the floor. It was terrifying," Dr. Paola Garcia said.

No patients or hospital workers were injured in the attack, police said.

Five suspects were arrested. Details of the arrests were not released.

Mexico has been beset by increasingly brazen slayings sparked by competition among drug-trafficking groups seeking control of the lucrative trade routes into the United States.

In the western state of Michoacan, gunmen linked to drug traffickers tortured an alleged rival, then drove the victim's truck over his head, leaving him in the street with a menacing note nailed to his chest and the corpse of his dog thrown on top of him, Reuters news agency reported.

Authorities said the victim, whose body was discovered Tuesday, was a member of a gang competing with the notorious Gulf cartel.

Even in Michoacan, where killers last year dumped five severed heads onto a club's dance floor, the killing was met with shock.

*
richard.marosi@latimes.com

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Mexico arrests border city chief of drug gang

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

Mexico arrests border city chief of drug gang
Tue Apr 17, 1:28 PM ET
Mexican police have arrested the local head of the notorious Gulf Cartel drug gang in a city on the U.S. border as part of President Felipe Calderon's nationwide crackdown on organized crime.
Juan Oscar Garza was the cartel's leader in the city of Reynosa, just south of McAllen, Texas and was sought in Mexico for smuggling drugs, guns and people across the border, the attorney-general's office said on Tuesday.
He was arrested at a nightclub in Reynosa along with his brother, sister and girlfriend. Officials declined to say when the arrest took place.
The Gulf Cartel is one of the country's two most powerful trafficking gangs and is locked in a bitter fight with rival smugglers from the Pacific coast.
Its leader Osiel Cardenas was extradited to the United States in January.
Calderon has ordered thousands of soldiers into states throughout the country to try to end a war between the two drug gangs which killed around 2,000 people last year.
But narcotics-related murders have continued unabated. More than 20 bodies were found throughout Mexico on Monday alone, including five corpses with bound hands and feet discovered stuffed into a sports utility vehicle in the beach resort city of Cancun.
Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


















 
 

Toll of drug war rises in Mexico An anti-narcotics official is gunned down, two journalists are abducted and an army captain ends up slain.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexdrugs15may15,0,567166.story?coll=la-home-world

Toll of drug war rises in Mexico
An anti-narcotics official is gunned down, two journalists are abducted and an army captain ends up slain.

By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer

May 15, 2007

MEXICO CITY — The newly appointed head of a drug intelligence unit in the attorney general's office was shot and killed Monday in a street ambush here that dealt a new blow to President Felipe Calderon's campaign against this nation's drug traffickers.

Officials said several assailants waited for Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix, director of the attorney general's "Information Against Delinquency" unit, trapping his SUV on a narrow street. Such assassinations have become common in many border and port cities of Mexico but are rare in the nation's capital.

Lugo Felix had been appointed in April to head the unit specializing in the analysis of data about the activities of Mexico's drug cartels, officials said. He was shot as he drove his vehicle during rush hour just outside an office of the attorney general in the southern Coyoacan district, a center of the city's arts community.

The method of the assault "leads us to presume it was a planned execution," Victor Corzo, an official with the attorney general's office, told reporters. "It could be related to drug traffickers because he was someone who possessed information." The slain official was a veteran anti-crime "strategist," Corzo added.

The killing came as apparent drug-related violence continued unabated across the country.

Over the weekend, two journalists for the Azteca television network were reported missing and assumed kidnapped in the northern city of Monterrey. An army captain was kidnapped and slain in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, on the Pacific Coast. Both regions have seen increasing violence as drug cartels fight one another for lucrative trade routes to the United States, while also battling the police and the army.

A report by the attorney general's office published Monday in the Mexico City newspaper Milenio said the drug war has intensified because the nation's two most powerful trafficking organizations are fighting over territory in six states: Guerrero, Michoacan, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco and Quintana Roo.

The rival traffickers are seeking to control rural areas where opium poppies and marijuana are grown, as well as key maritime shipping routes for Colombian cocaine that passes through Mexico on its way to the United States, the report said.

Lugo Felix had previously run a unit in the attorney general's office that investigated child and immigrant smuggling, authorities said.

His attackers used a red Pontiac to block his path, officials said. Gunmen emerged from the car and opened fire, striking him three times in the head. The assailants fled, abandoning the car, which turned out to be stolen, officials said.

In Monterrey, reporter Gamaliel Lopez Candanosa and cameraman Gerardo Paredes Perez have not been seen since Thursday, Azteca television said in a press release Sunday.

The two men were last seen after covering a Mother's Day event Thursday, the television network said. Dozens of police officers and government officials have been killed in the Monterrey area in the last year.

Lopez Candanosa was a general assignment reporter who only occasionally covered the region's drug wars, officials said. He reported in July on the discovery of a severed head and a threatening "narco message" in the city.

Mexico City newspaper El Universal said more than 1,000 people have been killed by organized crime groups this year. The newspaper Reforma counted 758 killed as of May 1. The Mexican government does not release an official tally.

Also Monday, a federal police investigator was found shot to death in Tijuana. Last week, a severed head was deposited at an army base in Veracruz, a day after Calderon's government announced it would send troops to the Gulf Coast state to combat the drug trade.

"We'll keep on going when the federal forces get here," read a note left with the head. It was signed "Z-40," a reference to the Zetas, a band of enforcers working in behalf of the Gulf cartel.

On Thursday, four government bodyguards assigned to protect the children of the governor of Mexico state, Enrique Peña Nieto, were slain in Veracruz while escorting their charges on a beach vacation.

Veracruz Gov. Fidel Herrera said the act was similar to those that have become common in states where drug cartels are battling to control lucrative trafficking routes.

"Just like in Sonora, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Michoacan and Guerrero, we are facing a national struggle," Herrera told reporters last week. The first federal forces arrived in the state Saturday.

Veracruz is a new front in the nation's drug wars. According to published reports, drug traffickers based in the northern Gulf Coast state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, are fighting rivals based farther west in the border state of Sinaloa. Each wants control of smuggling routes along the Gulf of Mexico. There are also reports that the Tamaulipas traffickers — the Gulf cartel — may be splitting into two rival groups.

Calderon has made the war on drugs the centerpiece of his presidency. Last week, he created the Corps of Federal Support Forces, an army unit specializing in anti-drug efforts. The unit will answer directly to his office.

Calderon sent army troops to Michoacan and Guerrero not long after taking office in December. The army is seen by many here as one of the few security institutions still relatively immune to infiltration by drug traffickers.

At least 11 army troops have been killed this year. Five soldiers were killed in an ambush in the town of Caracuaro, Michoacan, this month.

"The sacrifice of these patriots will not be in vain," Calderon said at an event marking Cinco de Mayo. "In honor of their memory, their deaths will not go unpunished and we will redouble our offensive against the enemy."

The latest victim, Lugo Felix, had been on the job just a few weeks, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said.

"To be honest, I think he was still getting his boxes unpacked," the spokeswoman said.


hector.tobar@latimes.com

Carlos Martínez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.

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Mexican army officer's body found

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico14may14,1,2000857.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Mexican army officer's body found

From the Associated Press

May 14, 2007

ACAPULCO, MEXICO — The body of a Mexican army captain was found in southern Guerrero state Sunday, a day after a severed head was left outside a military base with a note suggesting criminal gangs would defy the army's increased presence.

Also in Guerrero, unidentified attackers tossed a grenade late Saturday at a police station in Tecpan, damaging two police cars but causing no injuries.

Police found Capt. Jacinto Pablo Granda, 36, near a highway in Guerrero's capital of Chilpancingo, about 60 miles northeast of Acapulco, with two gunshot wounds to the head, said Erit Montufar, state director of investigative police.

Granda was vacationing with his family when he was abducted Saturday by armed men near a Chilpancingo military base, Montufar said. It was unclear whether the attackers knew that Granda, who was assigned to a different base, was an officer.

President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 24,000 soldiers and federal police to areas ravaged by drug violence, and criminals have apparently responded by attacking army troops. Five soldiers have died in attacks this month.

On Saturday, the head of a kidnapped auto mechanic was left in a box along with two grenades and a note from the purported gang members outside a military barracks in Veracruz. "We are going to continue, even if federal forces are here," authorities quoted the note as saying.

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Panama drug bust reveals trafficking's slow lane. Officials are stunned by the carelessness of a Mexican cartel that lost 20 tons of cocaine.

Warrior Stills
Originally uploaded by brucesingman.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pandrugs2apr02,0,3200199.story?coll=la-home-world
Panama drug bust reveals trafficking's slow lane
Officials are stunned by the carelessness of a Mexican cartel that lost 20 tons of cocaine.
By Chris Kraul
Times Staff Writer

April 2, 2007

PANAMA CITY — Call them "the not ready for prime time traffickers."

That's how Panamanian and U.S. authorities are describing alleged functionaries of a Mexican drug cartel that lost a $270-million load of cocaine in a colossal bust off Panama's Pacific coast last month.

In interviews here, officials were practically shaking their heads over the carelessness and inattention to detail by the Sinaloa-based cartel during the two months that a pair of alleged lieutenants spent in Panama City arranging the Colombia-to-Mexico shipment.

The big break in the case, officials said, came shortly after the two men arrived in town, when Panamanian police got a tip from a "walk-in" source in this city's huge shipping industry. His suspicions were apparently aroused by the fact that the men's company was leasing metal cargo containers in the free-trade zone of Colon — but had no apparent plans to fill them with cargo.

But the classic moment came several weeks later, when U.S. Coast Guard officers and sailors boarded the ship the men had bought, a 300-foot Panamanian-flagged cargo vessel called the Gatun.

Finding drugs on board was no sure thing, because traffickers find ingenious ways to hide their cargo behind false floors and walls, or submerge it in fuel tanks, or weld it inside heavy machinery, or embed it in cans of tuna or jars of marmalade.

But this time it was easy. U.S. Coast Guard and Panamanian officials noticed that customs seals on two of the 12 metal cargo containers on the Gatun had been improperly broken. When they opened the doors, bales of cocaine came tumbling out. Officials estimated the haul at 20 tons.

The biggest bonus for law enforcement officials may have been the laptop computer that one of the suspects, Jesus Mondragon, allegedly had in his possession when he was arrested at the airport in Panama City. Authorities say it contained a treasure trove of information that could lead to more arrests.

"I think he showed an excess of confidence," a top anti-drug prosecutor, Jose Abel Almengor, said in an interview.

*

Power shift

The bust, and an emerging portrait of the cartel allegedly headed by Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada as a gang that at least in this case couldn't shoot straight, offers a snapshot of the changing roles in the region's drug trafficking. It appears that the assumption of power by Mexican cartels from Colombian traffickers — who once exclusively managed the transit of big cocaine loads to Mexico or the U.S. — is hitting some snags.

Whether Zambada's men botched the deal or not, the seizure has raised fears that a bloodbath could ensue in Panama if, as expected, Mexican gangsters revisit the scene to exact revenge and settle scores. That's been traffickers' practice in the past when cocaine loads were lost along the U.S.-Mexico border or in the Caribbean.

"It's obvious that something went wrong for the narcos," Almengor said. "In any business, when something goes wrong there are consequences."

Said one foreign counter-narcotics official: "This could stir things up quite a bit."

It all began this year, when the two alleged traffickers, Mondragon and Jose Nunez, both Mexican nationals, arrived in Panama. Officials say they came to set up a front company called Marine Management & Chartering whose real purpose was to buy the Gatun for $3 million and use it to move drugs.

The plan called for the ship to pick up cargo containers in Colon, on the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal, then transit the 50-mile waterway and sail south to pick up the multi-ton load of cocaine off the Pacific coast of Colombia.

The ship would then head north to deliver the drugs to the cartel at the Mexican port of Topolobampo in Sinaloa state, according to law enforcement sources here.

Containerized cocaine is no novelty. As much as four-fifths of all Colombian cocaine is shipped to the United States via Central America and Mexico aboard fishing vessels, so-called go-fast boats, or hidden on cargo ships like the Gatun. A decade ago, most traffic was airborne, before tighter aerial surveillance forced traffickers to change tactics.

But the tip about the men's apparent disinterest in actually putting any cargo in the containers kicked off an investigation that involved Panamanian authorities and members of a multinational counter-narcotics task force called Operation Panama Express, which includes the United States. The team investigated the company and began monitoring the two men's activities. Mondragon was found to have a U.S. criminal record for drug trafficking and robbery and to have used various aliases, officials said.

Colombians involved in narco-logistics are usually careful to use intermediaries who run seemingly legitimate businesses and who have no rap sheets, officials said. Colombians also send a second layer of "supervisors" to make sure their on-the-ground logisticians aren't cooperating with law enforcement, miscounting the drugs or otherwise making errors.

*

Red flag

Before the March 18 bust, the Gatun had already made several trips from Guyana through the Panama Canal and then up the Pacific coast of Mexico to Sinaloa.

That raised another red flag because Guyana, on the Caribbean coast, has become a drug trafficking hub in recent years, as has neighboring Venezuela, according to U.S. and Colombian law enforcement authorities.

The task force tracked the Gatun as it traveled through the canal March 16, then veered south early the next day, allegedly to pick up the load of cocaine. Through unspecified surveillance methods, officials detected several trips by fast boats leaving Colombia's northwestern coast to offload drugs on the Gatun, which was anchored offshore.

The ship then turned north for Mexico.

Thinking the shipment was safely on its way, task force officials allege, Mondragon and Nunez left their mid-priced Panama City hotel that Saturday to catch a flight back to Mexico. They were arrested as they boarded a plane at Tocumen airport and charged with drug trafficking. They have denied any wrongdoing.

About the time they were arrested, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sherman, with the Panamanian government's permission, was stopping the Gatun off the Panamanian coast. The bust occurred the next day when Panama gave permission to search the vessel. The Sherman is one of half a dozen naval and Coast Guard vessels on call to intercept suspicious boats off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America.

Like other Central American countries, Panama is seeing a surge in cocaine trafficking as well as criminal side effects such as gang violence and deadly turf wars. Government and business officials are concerned the country could lose its sobriquet of "the safest country in Central America."

In fact, the Gatun bust brought the year-to-date total of cocaine seized in Panamanian waters or territory to 40 tons, which by some estimates is more than 5% of all the cocaine Colombia produces in a year. The seizures already surpass the 32 tons taken during all of 2006, Almengor said.

Officials fear the trend may be hard to reverse. Panama's proximity to Colombia and its robust economy provide perfect cover for the traffickers.

"Panama has financial institutions, the banking, the canal and the free zone that are attractive to honest investors," the foreign counter-narcotics official said. "But they appeal to delinquents too."

*
chris.kraul@latimes.com

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Mexican drug violence claims nearly 500 lives. While the crackdown on cartels has had some success, critics charge the president with playing to the media.

Warrior Stills
Originally uploaded by brucesingman.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-fg-mexdrugs24mar24,0,6478037.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Mexican drug violence claims nearly 500 lives
While the crackdown on cartels has had some success, critics charge the president with playing to the media.
By Hector Tobar
Times Staff Writer

March 24, 2007

MEXICO CITY — Nearly 500 people have been killed in Mexico's drug wars this year, according to media reports here, despite a crackdown on the illicit trade by President Felipe Calderon.

The dead include dozens of police officers, the daughter of a retired army general, and a suspected cartel hit man in the northern city of Monterrey left with a knife sticking out of his chest and a message to local officials affixed to his body.

"Attorney General: Don't be a fool," the note said. It accused local officials of protecting Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel, the bitter rival of the Gulf cartel, which is based in the border state of Tamaulipas. "This is just the beginning."

According to a tally kept by the Mexico City newspaper El Universal, along with other media reports, the number of drug-related killings had reached 492 by Friday.

Calderon's government, which took power in December, promised a get-tough approach against the drug trade, which claimed more than 2,000 lives last year.

This year, Calderon sent troops into the southern states of Guerrero and Michoacan, and to the border cities of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

In Tijuana, federal forces disarmed the police in January in a bid to fight widespread corruption in the municipal force.

But the measures have been criticized by many observers here.

"These operations are not designed to directly confront the organized crime groups," said Jose Arturo Ya–ez, a researcher at the Professional Police Training Institute in Mexico City. "They are designed to have an effect in the media, so that the federal government can be seen in action."

Still, the government has scored some key successes. In January, Mexico extradited 15 suspected drug cartel leaders to the United States, including Osiel Cardenas, who was reputed to have been running the Gulf cartel from his cell at a maximum-security Mexican prison.

And last week, Mexico's organized crime unit confiscated more than $207 million in cash from alleged methamphetamine producers operating in a Mexico City mansion.

This week, authorities revealed that they had miscounted the cash and added more than $1 million to the total.

The huge haul included just 50 counterfeit U.S. $100 bills, authorities said. Karen P. Tandy, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, praised the raid as "the result of tremendous police work by Mexican law enforcement."

The anti-drug campaign has also suffered some serious setbacks.

Seven police and security officials were ambushed and killed at two police stations in Acapulco on Feb 7. On Sunday, the police chief of the town of Boca del Rio in Veracruz state and two of his officers were ambushed and slain.

"These massive executions of police officers are a new phenomenon, and no branch of the government is doing anything to stop them," Ya–ez said. In many cases, he added, government officials have suggested that the slain officers were linked to organized crime.

"On the one hand, you have organized crime killing officers, and on the other the government is investigating officers and firing them," Ya–ez said. "No one protects them."

On March 6, the top security official in the state of Tabasco survived an assassination attempt that killed one of his bodyguards. On Feb. 19, a congressman from Nuevo Laredo survived an attack that claimed the life of his driver.

Authorities say drug traffickers were probably responsible for the killing of Mireya Lopez Portillo, the daughter of a retired general, and her husband, Jordi Peralta, in the capital's wealthy Bosques de Las Lomas neighborhood March 17.

Some officials have suggested that the killings may be linked to the huge cash seizure, which took place two days earlier.

In an interview Thursday with Reuters, Calderon said his family had received numerous threats from traffickers.

"It's a war, it's an issue I know will be with us a long time," Calderon said.

"I probably won't see the end during my presidency."

hector.tobar@latimes.com

Carlos Mart–nez and Cecilia S–nchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.

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Alleged trafficking ringleader, 18 members indicted

Warrior Stills
Originally uploaded by brucesingman.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bust1mar01,1,32121.story
Alleged trafficking ringleader, 18 members indicted
By Tony Perry
Times Staff Writer

March 1, 2007

SAN DIEGO — Federal officials Wednesday announced the indictment of the alleged ringleader and 18 members of a drug trafficking organization accused of smuggling tons of cocaine into the U.S., in large part through the Imperial Valley.

Dubbed Operation Imperial Emperor, the two-year investigation by several agencies has resulted in more than 400 arrests nationwide, including 66 in California, U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales said at a news conference.

Indictments were unsealed in California, Illinois, Arizona and New York. The alleged ringleader, Victor Emilio Cazares-Gastellum, who is known to enjoy an opulent lifestyle in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, remains at large, officials said.

The Cazares-Gastellum ring developed in the last two years as a rival to the larger and better-known Arellano Felix drug organization, Gonzales said.

During arrests in San Diego and Imperial counties, more than $1.8 million in currency was seized, along with 1,230 pounds of cocaine, 73 pounds of methamphetamine and 1,954 pounds of marijuana, according to court documents.

The organization allegedly smuggled drugs into this country from Colombia and Venezuela through the Imperial Valley and along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Most of the drugs were smuggled in vehicles. Shipments were then taken to Los Angeles, San Diego and other cities.

tony.perry@latimes.com

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Mexico to widen drug sweeps to two states bordering Texas

Warrior Stills
Originally uploaded by brucesingman.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexraids19feb19,1,7962363.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Mexico to widen drug sweeps to two states bordering Texas
From the Associated Press

February 19, 2007

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government will expand its drug raids to two states bordering Texas, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers, sailors and federal police, officials said Sunday.

The raids will cover Nuevo Laredo, a town across the border from Laredo, Texas, that has been bloodied by turf wars between drug gangs.

Officials also said that in the two months since intensive raids began in central and western Mexico, they had destroyed almost as many opium fields as plots of marijuana, long Mexico's principal drug crop.

"We have begun a frontal struggle against organized crime that has no precedent in the country's history," said Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez Acuña. "We are recovering territory for our children."

The raids began Dec. 8 in the western state of Michoacan, and have been expanded to several other states.

Starting over the weekend, 2,035 soldiers, 750 navy personnel and 516 federal police were dispatched to Tamaulipas state, home to the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros, and to the bordering state of Nuevo Leon, where shootings of police have become more common.

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Mexico to widen drug sweeps to two states bordering Texas

Warrior Stills
Originally uploaded by brucesingman.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexraids19feb19,1,7962363.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Mexico to widen drug sweeps to two states bordering Texas
From the Associated Press

February 19, 2007

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government will expand its drug raids to two states bordering Texas, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers, sailors and federal police, officials said Sunday.

The raids will cover Nuevo Laredo, a town across the border from Laredo, Texas, that has been bloodied by turf wars between drug gangs.

Officials also said that in the two months since intensive raids began in central and western Mexico, they had destroyed almost as many opium fields as plots of marijuana, long Mexico's principal drug crop.

"We have begun a frontal struggle against organized crime that has no precedent in the country's history," said Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez Acuña. "We are recovering territory for our children."

The raids began Dec. 8 in the western state of Michoacan, and have been expanded to several other states.

Starting over the weekend, 2,035 soldiers, 750 navy personnel and 516 federal police were dispatched to Tamaulipas state, home to the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros, and to the bordering state of Nuevo Leon, where shootings of police have become more common.

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Mexican drug war's brutality celebrated on YouTube. Videos of bloodied victims emerge as a new venue for propagating the mythology of the nation's cartels.

Warrior Stills
Originally uploaded by brucesingman.

"Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751
http://www.warriorthefilm.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexvideo11feb11,1,421110.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Mexican drug war's brutality celebrated on YouTube
Videos of bloodied victims emerge as a new venue for propagating the mythology of the nation's cartels.
By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer

February 11, 2007

MEXICO CITY — For months, video artists and videographers of varying skill have been peppering the Internet with a gruesome cavalcade of images: a woman slain in the cab of a pickup truck, an alleged Mafia hit man being tortured and executed, an assassinated singer's body splayed on a coroner's table.

Many of the videos are posted at one time or another on the website YouTube. They seek to cheer on or denigrate the opposing sides in Mexico's drug wars, the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the Gulf cartel believed led, until recently, by Osiel Cardenas. Mexican authorities extradited Cardenas last month to face charges in a U.S. courtroom.

Last week, assassins armed with both assault weapons and cameras appeared to take the cultural battle to a new level. Police said two groups of gunmen videotaped themselves Tuesday as they killed five officers and two secretaries at police stations in Acapulco.

Those images have yet to surface on the Internet. But already a vibrant subculture has emerged to celebrate and document the deeds of the drug traffickers. Though many of those who post videos are probably not directly involved in the drug trade, explicit threats were made on one blog, since shut down, that were later followed by actual killings.

The deeds of Mexico's drug traffickers have long been celebrated in the folk music genre known as narcocorridos. Web video is a new venue for spreading the mythology, allowing people who identify with one of the cartels to delight in humiliating their rivals.

The videos hint at the growing mystique of the cartels, which have formed competing bands of hit men who purportedly have received paramilitary training. Although YouTube often removes the violent videos from its site, they usually reappear quickly. Many of the postings have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

"Now you can see that they're not that brave — ha, ha, ha," one YouTube poster wrote in response to a four-minute video titled "Los Sicarios" (The Hit Men). The video shows a suspected member of the Gulf cartel, popularly known as the Zetas, arrested after a firefight in the state of Tabasco.

Handcuffed and lying on the floor, the suspect meekly asks to talk to his family and says, "They're going to kill me, I know I'm going to be killed."

"This is great," the YouTube poster writes in response. "Pure Sinaloa Productions."

Such mocking may merely be empty bluster, but other postings are not. In September, Marcelo Garza, a high-ranking federal investigator in the border state of Nuevo Leon, was assassinated 18 days after a blogger wrote, "We swear to you that soon we will knock him down." The blog accused Garza of working for a rival cartel.

In 2005, the Dallas Morning News obtained a copy of a DVD showing unknown kidnappers interrogating four men allegedly working for the Gulf cartel. One of the captives is executed on camera. A Mexican official told the newspaper that video was part of a rival cartel's "counterintelligence strategy."

The video of that killing has shown up in several YouTube postings, including one that threatens revenge for the killing of singer Valentin "The Golden Rooster" Elizalde, whose narcocorrido ballads were taken up as anthems to Sinaloa cartel leader Guzman.

"This is directed to all those who call themselves Zetas … and to the Gulf cartel," the YouTube video begins in a hip-hop cadence. "You'll pay with your lives for what you did to our Golden Rooster."

A 30-second video of Elizalde's autopsy in the border city of Reynosa after his slaying in November circulates widely on the Internet. As of Wednesday, one version on YouTube had been viewed more than 850,000 times.

A YouTube spokesman said in a statement last week that the company relied on users to report inappropriate content. Such content is removed, he said.

"Real violence on YouTube is not allowed," said the spokesman, who declined to be identified. "If a video shows someone getting 'hurt, attacked or humiliated,' it will be removed as according to our community guidelines."

Luis Astorga, a drug trafficking analyst at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the vast majority of videos posted on YouTube and other sites were probably produced by people with no links to the cartels.

Often, reporters arrive at crime scenes before the police do. Officers don't always close off the area, and bystanders can shoot footage with the hope of selling it later. In fact, some video available on YouTube appears to have been filmed by police, including an eight-minute sequence shot from inside a jail in Tabasco state during a shootout.

"We're in the Palace of Justice and we're under fire," one man in the video says as he calls for help on his cellphone. Explosions are audible outside the building, and blood covers the floor.

A woman cries out, "Please, call the army!"

But the camera-wielding assassins in Acapulco on Tuesday raise the possibility that the cartels are beginning to take the image war seriously, Astorga said.

The assault was staged much like a piece of improvisational theater. The killers arrived in two groups of eight.

Police and news reports say they included six men dressed in military uniforms, complete with red berets, and two men in business suits.

The assassins told officers to hand over their weapons. (Real army units disarmed the corruption-tainted police in the city of Tijuana last month.) When the weapons had been gathered, the assassins opened fire.

"Hopefully this isn't the beginning of a spiral of macabre videos," Astorga said. "Perhaps this was done with the goal of impacting public opinion."

hector.tobar@latimes.com

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7 slain in Mexico police stations. The two Acapulco attacks are carried out by gunmen dressed as soldiers. Authorities see a link to drug cartels.

Warrior Stills
Originally uploaded by brucesingman.

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"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexshooting7feb07,1,241860.story?coll=la-headlines-world
7 slain in Mexico police stations
The two Acapulco attacks are carried out by gunmen dressed as soldiers. Authorities see a link to drug cartels.
By Héctor Tobar and Carlos Martínez
Times Staff Writers

February 7, 2007

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen disguised as soldiers attacked two police stations and killed seven people Tuesday in the resort city of Acapulco, and apparently videotaped the slayings, police and media reports said.

Police officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the police stations had been at the center of a dispute between reform-minded state law enforcement officials and Acapulco police suspected of ties to drug traffickers.

Each attack was carried out by about eight men wearing olive-drab uniforms and berets, media reports said.

The assailants simultaneously entered the two stations, less than a mile apart, said a police official who requested anonymity. City police officers suspected of ties to drug cartels recently had been replaced at the stations by state police, officials said.

All those killed were employees of the state police. Five were officers and two were secretaries.

Media reports said the assailants were armed with assault rifles, including AK-47-style weapons known in Mexico as "the goat's horn," a signature gun of drug cartels.

"They used Green Beret-type uniforms as a disguise, apparently," one police official said. "They caught the police completely by surprise."

Acapulco and other cities and towns on the Pacific Coast of Mexico are way stations in an illegal drug trade worth several billion dollars, U.S. officials said. Hundreds of tons of Colombian-produced cocaine are smuggled by ship to Mexico each year, and then transported by land to the United States.

Rival drug operations have been fighting each other for months over control of smuggling routes through Acapulco and other cities in Guerrero state and adjacent Michoacan state.

Since taking office in December, President Felipe Calderon has sent troops into both states and to Tijuana and Sinaloa state in an effort to control violence. There were more than 2,000 drug-related killings in Mexico last year, media reports say.

Calderon also ordered the extradition of 15 alleged drug bosses to the United States last month.

But the violence appears to have continued unabated.

Last week, two soldiers were executed in a hail of bullets in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa. On Monday, a high-ranking Sinaloa state police official was killed in Culiacan. In Guerrero state, assailants attacked a police station with hand grenades.

The slayings in Acapulco were carried out with a speed and precision that suggested professional hit men, authorities said.

The two police stations were about two miles from Acapulco's tourist center and near the port, an impoverished area notorious as a center for drug shipments.

Media reports said gunmen arrived at the first station in sport utility vehicles, entered the building and shot a secretary, an officer and the station's commander. Witnesses told police that at least one of the attackers was recording the assault with a video camera.

In the second attack, a gunman dressed as a soldier asked, "Is everyone here?" before opening fire. A secretary and three officers were killed.

Videos showing drug-related slayings in Mexico, complete with captions and soundtracks mocking rivals, have become a fixture on the Internet in the last year.

A report Monday in El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper, said federal officials suspected that Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado Macedonio's 2005 election campaign was financed by the region's two largest drug cartels, who were fighting for control.

Federal officials said there was no proof that the mayor knew he was taking drug money. But they point out that he is now traveling with 14 bodyguards.

"You can't get involved with the cartels without there being consequences," one federal official told the newspaper.


hector.tobar@latimes.com

*

Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.




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